Xaverians carry out their mission
in midst of affluence

	LIFE ON THE KNOLL -- The Xaverian Fathers lead a prayer service in their chapel at the Xaverian Knoll located in Franklin. Three students are presently studying to be Xaverians and live at the Knoll. (Photo by Sam Lucero)

FRANKLIN -- Earlier this year, two Xaverian missionaries canned tomatoes fresh from their garden in their kitchen in Franklin. Here in their home, located on the Xaverian Knoll at the top of the Mission Ridge Subdivision, these two priests, Frs. Dominic Caldognetto and Larry Crosara, and two brothers, live simple lives serving their neighbors and their missions in the midst of affluence.

According to Caldognetto, the missionaries have a "friendly relationship" with their neighbors in the Mission Ridge Subdivision.

Several of the families help them with their annual festival in June, and Caldognetto regularly visited a neighbor suffering with cancer. Today that man has fully recovered.

Once the Xaverians had 68 acres here at 4500 Xavier Drive. But slowly they sold off all but 28 acres for the approximately 55 homes now on the property.

"We had more land than we needed. We had to pay taxes. This supports our work here and in the missions. Everything we do here is in view of the missions and to support the training of our students in Chicago. We do a lot of ministry in a number of parishes, especially now with the shortage of priests," he noted. For example, Caldognetto is well-loved by members of St. Mary Parish, Hales Corners, where he often presides at Mass. He also helps out at other parishes in different capacities.

Caldognetto and his fellow priests -- Crosara, Victor Mosele, and their superior, Alfredo Turco -- took vows of poverty, chastity, obedience -- and a fourth vow -- mission. "That reflects who we are, mainly the charism to dedicate our life to foreign missions and to bring the Gospel to people who never heard of it. One way I put it (mission) is we go to a place, work ourselves out of a job and move on," he said.

While Caldognetto has served in Bangladesh, Mosele was in Sierra Leone for 30 years and is now writing his memoirs. Recently their previous superior, Fr. Vasco Milani, left to serve in the Amazon.

Three students studying to be Xaverians also live at the Knoll. Two are from Mexico and the third from Indonesia, and they are students at Sacred Heart School of Theology.

Caldognetto's life reflects the work of these missionaries in developing countries. In 1957, he came to the Xaverian Knoll as a student from Vicenza, Italy, about 50 miles north of Venice. He studied at Saint Francis Seminary, and in 1966 was ordained a priest. He was assigned to the Chulna Diocese from 1974 to 1979 in a parish in the far northern part of Bangladesh. Despite his theological training, when confronted with the "poverty, hunger and lack of dignity" for these people, he said, "I had a crisis of faith. But one day in prayer I heard something within me say 'stop complaining, there's a reason I brought you here.' I came to understand my mission in Bangladesh was not to solve the problems of Bangladesh, but rather to be a witness of God -- I believe in a God of love. That's where I reconcile the two," he said.

"However, to accept the culture of where you are is the biggest challenge of a missionary," noted Caldognetto. "You go through a process of death yourself. You need to leave behind what was yours, your way of seeing and doing things, and accept and make your own their way of seeing things. We need to walk with them, not ahead of them," he said of the poor.

An example of his philosophy is what happened when one of the priests he worked with in Bangladesh hoped to bring everyone together -- Christians, Hindus and Muslims -- by helping them raise more than one crop. "So with our Western mentality of progress we brought in tractors, which were efficient and faster" than the traditional plowing with a stick pulled by two bulls.

But that plan backfired. The missionaries found the dust in Bangladesh got into the tractors' cylinders and on the small fields that Caldognetto described as "hankies," the tractors were difficult to maneuver.

Eventually the tractors broke down. The villagers then went back to their own method of plowing.

"With the best intentions, we were ahead of them, not with them," recalled Caldognetto.

Still today, through the assistance of the missionaries that area of Bangladesh has been developed. Two crops of rice are harvested annually and wheat is harvested in the winter months.

Caldognetto returned a second time to Bangladesh in 1987, staying until 1992. This time he was in the same diocese, but in the southwest part working exclusively with the outcasts or the "muci." Eventually he was put in charge of 90 orphan boys, including Christians and Hindus, at the Satkhira Orphanage.

"People would ask why we wouldn't help Muslims (boys)," he recalled. "But if we were to take Muslims, we would be accused of trying to make them Christians. It's not that we don't want them," he explained.

Once in the mission he said every need of the boys was provided for, especially "the need to be loved. That was my deepest aspiration -- that as they go through life they'd be able to remember someone loved them."

Back in the United States for the past 10 years, Caldognetto hopes to return to Bangladesh.

"One of the most beautiful gifts I brought home from Bangladesh is their respect for the elders, and also their sense of hospitality. They welcome you warmly in their homes. If they have no chair or a cup of tea, they'll borrow it from a neighbor," he said.

While Caldognetto appreciates comforts in the United States, he said when he came back from Bangladesh here it wasn't the affluence which bothered him, but "the waste. That's something I deeply feel. My relationship with the other is what counts. Everything else (material) comes and goes."

Caldognetto and the other residents of Xavier Knoll live simple lives, celebrating daily Mass together and serving their neighbors in the community and their missions.

Near the altar in the small chapel in their home, a wreath with numerous red ribbons hangs throughout the year. Each of the ribbons represents a missionary from the Xaverians who was murdered while serving in a developing nation.

"That's to remind us what missionary life may demand," he said of their work which was inspired by the life of St. Francis Xavier.

But their Xaverian motto, "the love of Christ urges us on," helps them to carry out their work in the wooded area here with a vista of the surrounding land, as well as in distant countries.

The Xaverian Missionaries was founded by Blessed Guido Maria Conforti in 1895. The order has 850 men serving in 19 countries from Indonesia to Colombia.